While car ownership soars, the local bike repairman seems to be on the road to extinction. This is not because the city has gone car crazy; there is no chance the bulk of the capital's citizens will ditch their bikes for cars any time soon. Cycles are cheap and Beijing is flat - it will be a bike town for a long time.
The average xiuche tanr ('bike repair stall') is a cupboard atop a three-wheeled wheelbarrow-bike combination; inside the cupboard are what seems like a million pieces and parts enabling magic to be worked on even the worst casualties, all for a pittance. Although the units are obviously mobile, the average repairman will park his stall permanently at his favourite spot.
These magicians are generally as weathered as the bikes they fix; leathery skin covers not only hands resistant to the fierce, wind-scarred winters but entire bodies that work with equal vigour in the thick, wet heat of summer.
They are as serious about their down time as they are their working hours, often missing summertime business by snoozing on a cot set up in the nearby strip of shade that determined their location in the first place, or because of high-intensity card games that keep them from their stall. It's not this laziness, though, that will vanquish them. The bicycle of choice for most Beijing cyclists is still the simple, one-gear all-steel machine for which the capital is best known. Heavy and durable, they have been ubiquitous since the dawn of the People's Republic. These machines are unbreakable - but should they falter, there are only a handful of parts that could possibly be responsible.
These heroes straight from the MacGyver school of problem-solving are as deft as the DIY-action hero with a sander, roll of tape or piece of wood, and thus are able to fix any problem a rider might be able to throw their way.
But changing times mean changing bikes, and regardless of the array of tools at a stallholder's disposal, they can barely keep up with the new two-wheelers roaming Beijing's streets.
